Huang Huang (left) and Ying Sun have developed a method for visualizing the spatio-temporal covariance properties of a dataset, which will help make sense of environmental data. Credit: KAUST Prediction of climate and weather relies on statistical models that can capture variability at one location over time as well as the relationship with other geographical…
Credit: Cardiff University Mathematicians have devised a way of calculating the size of a tsunami and its destructive force well in advance of it making landfall by measuring fast-moving underwater sound waves, opening up the possibility of a real-time early warning system. The sound waves, known as acoustic gravity waves (AGWs), are naturally occurring and…
Credit: Coventry University Modern mathematical techniques – similar to those used to analyse social-networking websites – have allowed academics to shed new light on a centuries old debate surrounding the Viking age in Ireland and the famous battle of Clontarf in 1014. The widespread view among the public is that the battle was the climax…
A Friend in Need (1903). Credit: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge Sitting in a bar, you start chatting to a man who issues you a challenge. He hands you five red and two black cards. After shuffling, you lay them on the bar, face down. He bets you that you cannot turn over three red cards. And…
Credit: CC0 Public Domain The Fields Medal, whose origins date back to the 1930s, will be issued again this year in August to up to four of the world’s most accomplished mathematicians under the age of 40. In a commentary for Nature, Michael Barany, a Society of Fellows post-doctoral fellow in history at Dartmouth, proposes…
Lin Friend on getting her early-years class to play airports; maths is fun, says Karl Sabbagh Children playing pure mathematics, alias chess, with Russian grandmaster and former world champion Garry Kasparov. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Images I was an early years teacher for most of my career (Letters, 16 January). One afternoon our new head who was…
Cancer cells. Credit: Dr. Cecil Fox, National Cancer Institute Applied mathematics can be a powerful tool in helping predict the genesis and evolution of different types of cancers, a study from the University of Waterloo has found. The study used a form of mathematical analysis called evolutionary dynamics to look at how malignant mutations evolve…
Credit: Shutterstock Prime numbers are more than just numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one. They are a mathematical mystery, the secrets of which mathematicians have been trying to uncover ever since Euclid proved that they have no end. An ongoing project – the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search – which aims…
Duke Health researchers found players with higher scores on computer-based vision and motor tasks had better on-field performance. In this photo, a Duke student demonstrates some of the tasks. Credit: Shawn Rocco, Duke Health New research from Duke Health suggests baseball scouts looking for a consistent, conscientious hitter may find clues not only in their…
Prime Numbers The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 277,232,917-1, having 23,249,425 digits. A computer volunteered by Jonathan Pace made the find on December 26, 2017. Jonathan is one of thousands of volunteers using free GIMPS software. The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is calculated…